XXXIV

THE METHOD OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE

The consideration of these needed emphases in modern religious life, itself, suggests the two great positive ways,
already considered, of coming into assured personal relation to God. They are not really two ways, but rather two
aspects of our one great method of finding the reality of the spiritual.

Starting from the analogy of the way in which we come into all the great values of life, we may say that to have a
real and significant spiritual life simply requires that we should put ourselves in the presence of the greatest
facts of the spiritual world, in voluntary surrender to them, just so far as they command our inner allegiance. This
will mean, above all, that we put ourselves steadily, persistently into the closest possible relation with the inner
life of Christ, giving that life full opportunity to make upon us its own legitimate impression, to communicate to us
Christ's own sense of the reality of God and of the spiritual life. Only so shall we be following the prime law
for coming into all the greatest values of life—staying persistently in the presence of the best we know in the realm
of the spiritual, with honest response to its natural, inevitable appeal. This will bring us surely, increasingly,
into Christ's life of love to God and love to men. We need here particularly to remember how inextricably the
sense of the reality of the spiritual is bound up with persistent loyalty to the ethical demands, just so far as
known.

Starting from the analogy of personal relations, we may say that to have a real and significant spiritual life
requires that we should honestly recognize that the spiritual life is essentially a life of personal relations with
men and with God, and should act accordingly. That is, we must simply follow the laws of the spiritual life. This
means that we must steadily fulfil the conditions of a deepening personal relation with God and with men; only being
sure that we do not transfer to God the limitations of the finite. The conditions of the spiritual life can thus be
pointed out, and fulfilled, and we may count upon the result. Every bit of experience in the human relations throws
light upon the divine; all growth in the divine life is immediate gain for the human relations. The ethical and
religious are bound up together, and all life becomes one—a life of learning to love.

This is simply putting to practical test Christ's hypothesis of love as the essence of life. The method
confronts us, that is, with the plain challenge: Go forward, in your religious life, in steady fulfilment of the
conditions of a deepening personal relation man-ward and God-ward, and you will find the relation to God becoming
increasingly real and satisfying. But as soon as one seeks honestly to carry out this counsel in relation to God, he
sees at once that every deepening personal relation requires mutual self-revelation on the part of the persons
concerned. He will seek, therefore, to build the relation to God upon the fullest revelation of God. This he must
naturally find in the world's most significant personality, Christ; and in the presence of that completest
self-revelation of God, he goes forward in his fulfilment of the conditions of a deepening friendship with God.

The two methods, thus, both necessarily build upon close and persistent association with the life of Christ, as
the greatest spiritual fact of the world, and the most significant self-revelation of God. Both emphasize the need of
honest response to the best we know. Both count upon the appeal and the inevitable contagion of Christ's own
life. But the laws of the growing life are most clearly and definitely indicated as those of a deepening personal
relation.[1]

[1] Attention may well be called just here to the peculiar value of
Drummond's address on "The Changed Life" as at least a partial illustration of the use of both
methods.